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Hollingpr 

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MiU Run F03-2193 



CITY 



BOUNTY FUND COMMISSION, 



PHILADELPHIA. 



REPORT 

OF THE 

CITY BOUNTY FUND COMMISSION. 



OFFICE OF THE CITY BOUNTY FUND COMMISSION, 
No. 613 Chestnut Street, December 31, 186&/ 

To 

Hon. Alexander Henry, 

Mayor of Philadelphia. 

Sir : — In compliance with your request, the Commission 
appointed under Ordinance of December 12, 1863, to pay 
bounty to volunteers, respectfully report : 

That they met and organized on December 15, 1863, and 
from ttat time until the beginning of June, held daily 
sessions, which frequently occupied many hours. The 
quotas under the calls of February 1st and March 14th, 
1861, being then filled, and the government bounty with- 
drawn, but little recruiting was done during the summer. 



.5 
2 

They, therefore, met but three times a week until August, 
when daily sessions were resumed. 

Under the Ordinance, they were merely assigned the 
duty of reporting to you the names of those entitled to 
bounty. As it would have been impossible, however, for 
you to attend to the delivery of so large a number of war- 
rants, and to verify the identity of the applicants, amounting, 
at times, to many hundreds daily, the Commission assumed 
the additional duty of making out the warrants, keeping 
them in custody, and delivering them to the recruits, or to 
their properly authorized representatives. This additional 
labor, though onerous, was cheerfully submitted to, in the 
conviction that it was the only mode by which the some- 
what cumbrous routine prescribed for the business of the 
City could be adapted to the exigencies of rapid recruiting. 
With all their exertions, however, the inevitable delays 
consequent upon the system have placed the City at con- 
siderable disadvantage in competition with the neighboring 
districts, whose agents station themselves in our recruiting 
offices, with cash in hand to tempt volunteers. It is well 
worthy the consideration of Councils whether, in any future 
operations of this kind, some means cannot be found to, 
remove this disadvantage. A smaller amount of money 
paid in hand is more tempting than a larger amount for 
which the recruit must wait two or three days after his 
muster-in. The plan adopted in New York, where the 
recruit is mustered-in at the office of the Commissioners, 
and receives his bounty on the spot, with proper precau- 
tions against desertion, offers great facilities for the safe and 
successful prosecution of the business of recruiting. 

The amounts appropriated by Councils, in aid of volun- 



teering, to be expended under the supervision of this Com- 
mission, have been : 



By Ordinance of December 12, 1863, $1,250,000 no 

February 9, 1864 2,000,000 00 

March 21, 1864, 1,000,000 00 

July 18, 1864 1,500,000 00 

" September 30, 1864, 50,000 00 

In all, $5,800,000 00 



From this amount, bounties have been 
awarded as follows : 

Under Ordinance of December 12, 1863, to 

15,050 Three years recruits for vol- 
unteers, army and navy, at $250... $3, 762, 500 00 
75 Marines for four years, 18,750 00 

Under Ordinance of July 2, 1864, to 

3 One year volunteers, at $100... 300 00 

865 Substitutes for three years, at 250 216,250 00 

3 " two years, at...200 600 00 

5 " one year, at 100 500 00 

Under Ordinance of August 9, 1864, to 

43 Volunteers and regulars for 

three years, $400.... 17,200 00 

5 Volunteers for two years, 400 2,000 00 

1714 Volunteers for one year, 400 685,600 00 

1 Naval recruit for three years,.. 400 400 00 

33 " for two years,. ..400 13,200 00 

259 " for one year, 400 103,600 00 

15 Marines for four years 400 6,000 00 

$4,826,900 00 $5,800,000 00 



Forward $4,826,900 00 $5,800,000 00 

Under Ordinance of September 30, 1864, to 

28 Volunteers and regulars for 

three years, $450 12,600 00 

2 Volunteers for two years 450 900 00 

982 " for one year 450 441,900 00 

105 Naval recruits for two years,. ..450, 47,250 00 

37 Marines for four years, 450 16,650 00 

Under Ordinance November 4, 1864, to 

660 Volunteers and regulars for 

three years, $450 297,000 00 

7 Volunteers for two years 300 2,100 00 

28 Volunteers for one year 150 4,200 00 

102 Substitutes for three years 300 30,600 00 

1 " for one year 100 100 00 

73 Naval recruits for three years, 450 32,850 00 

71 " for two years,. .300 21,300 00 

57 Marines for four years, 450 25,650 00 



20,224 Bounties awarded, amounting to $5,760,000 00 $5,800,000 00 

In addition to this, the expenditures of the 
Commission have amounted up to this 
date to 6,550 87 

(Besides this, there have been a few small 
bills not verified in time to be included in 
the warrants of 1864.) 

There has been paid, under Ordinance of 
July 12, 1864, for the " Citizens' Volun- 
teer Substitute Committee," $787 63 

Less repaid by J. G. Kosengarten, 

Treasurer, $88 39 

699 24 

And under Ordinance of September 30, 
1864, for the "Committee to recruit for 
Deficient Wards," 847 78 5,768,007 89 



$31,902 11 
To this must be added sundry amounts refunded for re- 
cruits discharged, etc., in all 5,683 25 

Leaving balance of appropriations, December 31, 1864,... $37,585 36 



The recruits to whom bounty has been awarded may be 
classified thus : — 



Volunteers and Regulars 18,446 

Substitutes 976 

Naval Recruits 618 

Marines 1 84 



20,224 
Of the Volunteers, 6,012 were re-enlisted veterans. 

Or, classifying them with respect to their terms of 
service, 

Recruits for one year, 2,992 

" two years, 226 

three years, 16,822 

four years, 184 



20,224 



A few of the warrants included in the above statement 
have not yet been delivered to the parties for whom they 
were drawn. Recruits have occasionally been sent off 
without having the opportunity of drawing their bounty ; 
and in many cases the furloughs of re-enlisted veterans 
expired before their muster-in rolls reached the Commission. 
Some claimants are thus probably dead, while others may 
be deserters. The warrants thus left in the hands of the 
Commission will be delivered to their successors. 

The attention of the Commission having been drawn to 
the large proportion of "bounty jumpers" among the 



6 



recipients of bounty, and to the facilities for and impunity 
of desertion, under the existing arrangements for recruiting 
volunteers, they announced, on November 22d, that they 
would in future pay bounty only to recruits enlisting in the 
regular army and naval service. The Commission has 
reason to believe that this action was not without weight in 
aiding the introduction of certain reforms in the system of 
recruiting for the volunteer forces, which promise to assimi- 
late it to that existing in the regular services, giving 
reasonable safeguards against desertion, and tending to 
deter professional deserters from pursuing their avocation. 

Bounty was continued to regular recruits until December 
9th, when notice was given of its withdrawal. The small 
balance left on hand may probably be required to meet the 
claims of those who enlist at a distance, and whose rolls 
are frequently many months in reaching us. 

It has been suggested in some quarters that the City 
ought to lay claim to funds which have accumulated at the 
rendezvous here, arising from the local bounties taken from 
recruits who have subsequently deserted or been rejected. 
Had it been proper and advisable to make such a claim, 
the Commission would have felt it their duty to do so. It 
is the rule of the regular service to require two examina- 
tions of each recruit, and during last summer, this rule was 
extended to the volunteers, in consequence of the numerous 
complaints that men unfit for service were received in the 
army. When the Commission learned that a portion of the 
men to whom they were paying bounty were rejected at 
the rendezvous, they made enquiry to ascertain whether 
the city was deprived of credit for these men, and not 
obtaining satisfactory assurances, they announced that no 
bounty would be paid without a certificate that the recruit 



had been finally accepted. This virtually put a stop to 
recruiting until an order was received from the Provost 
Marshal General, that, at the time of muster-in, absolute 
credits should be given, which would not be cancelled by 
the subsequent rejection of the recruits. The Government 
thus consented, when it rejected a recruit, to lose a man ; 
as an equivalent it retained his local bounty, or such part 
of it as might have been detained from him. The City 
preserved the credit, and had no further claim on the 
moneys accumulating from that source in the hands of the 
officers entitled to hold them. 

"With the investigations now in progress as to the manner 
in which the agents of the Government have administered 
the trust confided to them, the City has therefore nothing 
to do. The Commission, however, is glad to learn that 
arrangements are being perfected by which a paymaster 
will be stationed at the rendezvous, and the business of 
handling the bounty of recruits will be systematized so as 
to afford to the Government reasonable security against 
desertion, while the honest recruit will be protected from 
imposition. 

Since the appointment of the Commission, Philadelphia 
has been required to fill her quota of the following calls : 

Call of October 17, 1863, 300,000 men. 

« February 1, 1861, 200,000 " 

« March 14, 1861, 200,000 " 

" July 18, 1864, 500,000 « 

1,200,000 " 



Under these, the quotas of the City, as announced, have 
been, 

Call of October 17, 1863 and February 1, 1864 18,123 

" March 14, 1864 5,507 

" July 18, 1864 11,742 



35,372 

Against which were credits, 

For draft of July, 1863 3,658 

Sundry credits, including recruits up to 

January 1, 1864 2,276 5,934 

Leaving to be furnished subsequent to January 1, 

1864 29,438 

It is impossible to make an exact comparison between 
these figures and the bounties paid by the Commission, 
owing to the above item of 2,276 men, some of whom 
were recruited before and others after the 17th of October, 
1863, the date at which bounties were authorized by the 
ordinance of December 12, 1863. Much labor has been 
bestowed upon the effort to reach a correct estimate of 
this, but it has been unavailing. 

The calls of October 17, 1863, and February 1, 1864, 
were combined and considered as one for 500,000 men. 
The quota officially announced under it was so large as to 
excite general surprise. A member of the Commission 
was deputed in conjunction with E. Spencer Miller, Esq., 
appointed by Councils, to investigate it, and, if found too 
large, to obtain its reduction. Several visits were made to 
Washington, and laborious investigations undertaken. It 



was found that the quota itself was "but 13,769, and that the 
remainder, 4,354, was the portion allotted to Philadelphia 
of an assumed deficiency of 20,792 men, claimed by the 
Government from the State of Pennsylvania, under the 
calls of 1861 and 1862. A copy of the account kept with 
the State was procured, and a clerical error was discovered 
of 18,884 nine months' men, equivalent to 4,721 three 
years' men. On pointing this out to the Enrolment Bureau, 
credit for that amount was at once given to the State, the 
share of which for this City was 989 men. This still left 
us with a deficiency of 3,365 men charged against us. 

The alacrity with which Philadelphia, since the com- 
mencement of the war, has responded to every appeal, gave 
assurance to the Committee that no such deficiency could 
have occurred. Considerable investigation into such re- 
cords of the years 1861 and 1862 as were accessible, con- 
vinced them of the fairness of a report made on the subject 
by Messrs. Allen and Gerhard, the Draft Commissioners 
under the State law, which declared that Philadelphia 
had filled all her quotas of 1861 and 1862, on the 2d of 
November, 1862. After several interviews with the Presi- 
dent and Secretary of War, the justice of this was acknowl- 
edged, and an order was obtained cancelling the deficiency 
charged against the City, and, as a necessary consequence, 
giving us credit for all men supplied since November 2, 
1862, up to the period when credits had been given by the 
Department directly to enrolment districts. A careful ex- 
amination showed this to be 2,915 men, making in all a credit 
of 7,269 men secured by the labors of the Committee. 

This credit of 2,915 men was only settled on the 30th 
of May, the day preceding that appointed for the draft. 



10 



Several wards were still deficient, and, under a resolution 
of Councils, efforts were made to have this credit so dis- 
tributed as to protect those wards. These efforts were 
successful in all but the Fifth district, where a draft in 
the Twenty-fifth Ward took place for forty-six men. 

In this settlement, one point was left open for future 
adjustment. Under G. O. 94 of 1862, the call for 
300,000 militia was for nine months men; on this call, 
Philadelphia furnished three years men. She would thus 
seem to have an equitable claim for the overplus of service 
rendered. Her quota under the call, was 8,730, and the 
overplus therefore, was equivalent to 6,548 three years 
men. This claim, with the others, was laid before the 
President, but while granting the rest, he deemed it advi- 
sable to postpone the consideration of this, and the Com- 
mittee felt that it was not desirable to press the matter. 
The question was embarrassed by the fact that due credit 
had been given to the State at large, for the full amount of 
service of the men raised under this call. 

On the 1st of June, the several Wards of the City had 
an aggregate surplus amounting to nearly four thousand 
men, but as another call was promised shortly, it was not 
considered advisable to abandon recruiting. Yarious plans 
were tried to stimulate volunteering, which seemed almost 
extinct, and a number of recruits were obtained as substi- 
tutes or representatives. 

The amended Enrolment Act of July -4, 1864, authorized 
the claim for credit of all men furnished to the navy, since 
the commencement of the war and prior to February 24, 
1864. This could not but prove of much importance to 
Philadelphia, from her position as a seaport with a Navy 



11 



Yard, and from the numbers of her sea-faring population. 
Measures were accordingly taken, at an early day, to ob- 
tain authentic evidence as to the credit which could pro- 
perly be claimed. It was not, however, until August 16th, 
that official information was received as to the appointment 
of a Commission to sit at Harrisburg for the investigation 
of such claims, under orders to report by September 1st. 
Fortunately, a large part of the work had already been 
done, and every exertion was used to complete it. By 
August 28th, the Harrisburg Commission was furnished 
with a sworn transcript of the registers at the Naval Ren- 
dezvous and Rendezvous* for Marines here, giving a des- 
cription of 7,366 men shipped and recruited here between 
the dates specified by the law. 

No pretence was made that these men all belonged to 
Philadelphia ; but, under the ruling of the Department, the 
claim was filed for the State at large, and, as this Commis- 
sion believes, was so allowed. 

The several wards of the City had been urged to can- 
vass carefully for their residents in the naval service, and 
to forward lists of such to the Harrisburg Commission. 
Additional time was obtained; and, though some wards, 
from supineness, may have failed to obtain all the names 
which they could have justly claimed, it is believed that, 
on the whole, the numbers awarded were very nearly all 
that we were justly entitled to. The aggregate of the 
credits thus given to the Wards, reduced to terms of three 
years, amounted to 5,260 men. 

It will thus be seen that the quotas of Philadelphia, under 
the calls for 1,200,000 men in 1863 and 1864, have been 
filled as follows : 



12 



Draft of July, 1863 3,658 

Sundry credits to Jan. 1, 1864 2,276 

Credits obtained for recruits prior to June, 1863.... 7,269 

Naval credits prior to Feb. 24, 1864 5,260 

Bounties awarded to 20,224 

38,687 
Total claimed by Government 35,372 

Surplus '. 3,315 

The surplus on the books of the A. A. Provost Marshal 
General of this Division, amount at this date, to 3,769, 
distributed among the several wards of the City as follows : 



First District. 



Second Ward 76 



Third 

Fourth 

Fifth 

Sixth 

Eleventh 



120 
222 
150 
123 

210 



901 



Second District. 

First and Twenty- sixth "Wards 241 

Seventh Ward , 89 

Eighth " 275 

Ninth " 223 

Tenth " 239 



1,067 



13 



TniRD District. 

Twelfth Ward 59 

Thirteenth " 110 

Sixteenth " 47 

Seventeenth " 29 

Eighteenth " 89 

Nineteenth " 62 



396 



Fourth District. 

Fourteenth Ward 97 

Fifteenth " 324 

Twentieth " 13-4 

Twenty-first " 221 

Twenty-fourth " 244 



1 ; 020 



Fifth District. 

Twenty-second Ward 142 

Twenty-third " 153 

Twenty-fifth " 90 

Total 



385 



3,769 



The Commission would observe that this result, so cred- 
itable to the City, and which should be so satisfactory to 
the citizens, has been attained at a very small outlay in the 
Way of expenses. Feeling the oppressive nature of the 
debt which was being created for bounties, they have sedu- 
lously endeavored to keep the expenses of their office, of 



14 



advertising, and of the various extra investigations under- 
taken, at the lowest possible mark. It is, therefore, not 
without a feeling of pride that they refer to the enormous 
amount of complicated business transacted by them, during 
a period of more than a year, at the comparatively trifling 
expenditure of less than $7,000. For the purpose of com- 
parison, they would mention that the Board of Supervisors, 
in New York, expended, up to March 17th last, $29,913 50, 
in paying bounties to 12,534 men, exclusive of bounties 
and premiums ; and in filling the call of July 18th, which 
was almost exclusively accomplished by the Naval credits 
allowed to that city, the expenses, exclusive of bounties, 
were $150,000. 

On the eve of the retirement of this Commission, the 
quotas of the City have been announced, under the call of 
December 19th, 1864. They are as follows : 

First District, 8 >428 

Second District, 4,474 

Third District, 3,840 

Fourth District, 3,749 

Fifth District (City portion), 2,023 

Aggregate quota of Philadelphia, 17,514 

Although the duty of filling this quota will devolve upon 
the successors of this Commission, still the allotment is so 
inexplicably large, and the time allowed by law for filling 
it is so short, that the Commission have deemed it advisa- 
ble to take steps immediately to have it explained, and to 
obtain the correction of any errors which may be found. 
Correspondence on the subject is in progress, and, the 



15 

Commission are nappy to state, with every prospect of a 
satisfactory termination. 

It may not be ont of place here to put on record a sum- 
mary of what has been done by Philadelphia in supplying 
men for the Union since the beginning of the war. 

The Eeport of Messrs. Allen and Gerhard, made in 
November, 1862, carefully excluded all recruits from other 
localities in Philadelphia regiments, while it took no count 
of such of our citizens as enlisted in organizations raised 
elsewhere. No accurate estimate can now be had as to 
these, but the Report is probably at least 5,000 men short 
of the number actually furnished by the City up to that 
time. 

The Report gives credit to Philadelphia for three years men.... 29,723 

Since then we have furnished our allotments as 
follows : 

Quota of 500,000 men, February 1st, 1864 13,769 

Quota of 200,000 men, March 14, 1864 5,507 

Quota of 500,000 men, July 18, 1864 11,742 

And we now have a surplus of 3,769 

Making a total of men for long terms of service since the begin- 
ning of the war 64,510 

In addition to this, we have furnished, for short 
terms, 

Three months' men, April, 1861, as per records of the "City 

Relief Committee," 5,420 

Emergency men, September, 1862 4,914 

Emergency men, June, 1863 10,424 

One hundred days' men, July, 1864, as per records of the " Vet- 
eran Bounty Commission," , 2,816 

Total $88,084 



16 



This is a record of which any community may well feel 
proud. 

In conclusion, the Commission feel it their duty to 
express their opinion of the inadequacy of the present 
system of raising troops, the results of which are seen in 
the quickly recurring calls for enormous numbers of men. 
The corrupting influence of large bounties is widely 
spread, and appears to be daily extending. It encourages 
and facilitates the prevalent vice of desertion, and the only 
regret which the Commission feel, in looking back over 
many months of toil, is, that the money intended to cheer 
the hearth of the absent patriot has, in too many cases, gone 
into the hands of the professional bounty -jumper, whose 
name, indeed, has remained credited to the City, but whose 
place in the ranks has never been filled. 

R. P. KING, 

JOSIAH KISTERBOCK, 
J. P. McEADDEN, 
THOMAS WILMER, 
HENRY C. LEA, 

Co7nmis$ioner$. 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 



014 314 783 6 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 



014 314 783 6 



Hollinger 

pH 83 

Mill Run F03-2193 



